Revision as of 02:04, 10 July 2006

Contents

What is the KuroBox?

The KuroBox is a small-footprint Embedded Linux-based platform for a personal server.

The current incarnation of the KuroBox, the KuroBox/HG WR, sports a
266Mhz PowerPC processor, 128MB of RAM, 2 USB 2.0 Ports, and a 10/100/1000Mbit network interface.
The KuroBox comes without a hard drive, but can
hold any standard IDE (parallel ATA, not SATA) 3.5" drive. The
KuroBox runs on a Linux kernel, and has multiple options for actual
distribution. Actually, any Linux distribution that supports PPC
will work, but so far the community has ported over
Gentoo,
Debian,
Fedora and
Sylver's Distro (which is the current incarnation of the Kuro's original embedded distribution).

To give you a rough idea about the KuroBox/HG's
power, it can transcode (decode and then re-encode to another
bitrate) MP3's using LAME
at about 25% faster than realtime. While not as fast as today's
modern PC's, this is coming from a box that uses 17Watts of
juice. The tiny onboard fan (used to dissipate the hard drive's
heat) is ultra-quiet at 22dB.

The KuroBox is not for the faint of heart -- there
is no graphical installer, no "click here to launch your web server" button. However, if you know a little about Linux, or are willing to learn, the KuroBox is an excellent platform for a small space
server.

Older Kuro Box Versions

The original Kuro Box

200 MHz PowerPC

64MB RAM

1 USB port

10/100 network interface

Kuro Box HG

Almost identical to the current Kuro Box HG WR. The main difference is that the Kuro Box HG had an internal 110V power supply, while the Kuro Box HG WR has an external "brick" power supply 110V ... 240V.